Zoom to allow paying users choose which data centres route their calls

Zoom will allow paying customers to select which data centre regions route their traffic starting April 18th, in an attempt address privacy concerns.

This move comes after a report from the University of Toronto disclosed that Zoom creates encryption keys for some calls from servers in China, regardless of whether users on the call are actually in the country.

The report found that Zoom’s encryption practices could essentially allow Chinese officials to request the company to disclose those encryption keys. The company has since said that calls won’t be routed through China after it fixed the flaw.

The platform said in a blog post that “every paid Zoom customer can opt in or out of a specific data centre region. This will determine the meeting servers and Zoom connectors that can be used to connect to a meeting you are hosting and ensure the best-quality service.”

Zoom notes that its data centres are currently located in Canada, the U.S., Europe, India, Australia, China, Latin America and Japan.

It should be noted that users won’t be able to change or opt out of their default region, which is the region where a customer’s account is provisioned.

“This feature gives our customers more control over their data and their interaction with our global network when using Zoom’s industry-leading video communication services,” the company notes.

This comes after the company has been facing increased scrutiny for its security and privacy practices. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan recently said that the company failed to fully implement its best practices due to added service capacity amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Zoom has announced a 90-day feature freeze to focus on implementing new privacy measures and to fix the numerous current security flaws.

Business plans for the service start at $20 CAD a month per host, and includes 100 participants. The enterprise plan costs $27 CAD a month and includes 500 participants.

Source: Zoom